The Box

The Box teaches how the drive and imagination of one entrepreneur impacted the world economy and changed the face of global trade with container shipping.

I imagined that the concept of container shipping was conceived by someone connected to the maritime realm. It was actually invented by an outsider in the trucking business named Malcolm McLean.

It was just after World War II when just about everything was subject to strict regulation. Prices were fixed, including the cost of shipping. This was killing competition. The Interstate Commerce Commission, or the ICC, only allowed for companies to haul approved goods on approved routes and at approved rates. It was all about order with little regard for efficiency.

This is when McLean came up with the revolutionary idea of putting the truck trailers on shipping vessels, rather than driving them along increasingly congested coastal highway routes. But since that idea would go against trucking mandates, he did the logical thing. He left the trucking business and went into shipping. He began seeking outside expertise to help transform the industry.

McLean thought since trucks with tires take up too much space, maybe an aluminum box would be the way to go. He found an aluminum box manufacturer, called Brown Industries.

His next task was to transform cranes into loading machines. Of course the railroads were not crazy about this idea so they protested. Their protests were overruled by the ICC and the first container transport was ready to launch. On April 26, 1958, the first containers launched from Newark New Jersey to Houston, Texas.

McLean’s genius wasn’t to invent the container, but to bring a crazy new idea into the shipping industry.

When you think about containers does the Vietnam War come to mind? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. But I discovered that containers actually played a pretty significant role in the conflict. When the U.S. began amassing troops in Vietnam during the winter of 1965, it was a logistical shit show. The entire country was served by only one deepwater port, a single railroad line, and a disjointed highway system. When president Johnson first ordered troops into Vietnam, there were no organized supply chains in place. Ships needed to remain out at bay and it required ferries to unload and transport the supplies to port. This was an extremely time-consuming process. The army consulted shipping executives to help solve these issues. McLean was obsessed with bringing container ships to Vietnam. He must’ve made a convincing case – in March of 1967 he signed a contract for Vietnam. Sea-Land provided seven ships. They would use their own trucks to transport to deliver within a 30-mile radius of the piers. This eventually helped turn…